Lost and Found
by jigglyjelly28
Summary: She moved her hand from my arm and grabbed onto my hair, keeping me in place as she spoke in a low voice, meaning every threat she said. "Listen hear, son. You want to know what the stars say? Fine. They say that there's something coming for us back there. Something that no one has ever seen before-" Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competiton - Finals round.


**A/N - Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition! The Magpies are luckily in the final! Yay! I'm writing about a centaur this time around, which was quite hard, I think. Anyway, I'm going to say that this is post-War, and it is _not _in the Forbidden Forest (though I haven't actually said in what forest they _are _in). All the names used are real names for centaurs from a book of mythology that I happen to own.**

**(Also, I don't know anything about centaur behaviour, so I kind of just made it all up).**

**PROMPTS:**

**#4 – Lost and found**

**#6 – Dialogue: "Is that too much to ask?"**

* * *

Mother said that we had to leave the forest. She didn't give much of an explanation, only that around about half the heard had already started moving south, towards where we knew there was a river, and were going to follow it down to a safer place. How anyone knew whether our new home was going to be safer than this one, I had no idea.

There was something bad happening among our herd, I knew that and had seen it with my own eyes. Some time in the summer, a few moons ago, I accidentally stumbled across our leader, Thereus, and some elder members laying one of our dead down to rest. I remember noticing that there were several piles of newly turned earth surrounding the small group, and one or two other corpses waiting for their turn to be buried, before I was caught intruding and steered away. It seemed as if I wasn't supposed to see what was happening, or what had evidentially happened; though, I do suppose that not many centaurs would have noticed the disappearances since our herd was rather large, and some members never stayed for long.

Thereus probably didn't want to worry the others, and so was trying to keep it as quiet as he could. If they were scared, then they wouldn't stick around for long and would decide to leave on their own and maybe eventually end up with a different centaur clan. And Thereus couldn't have that; he needed to be the biggest clan – the strongest. The bigger the clan, the better a chance we _all _had at staying safe from possible Wizards out for a hunt, or from other creatures living in the forest, such as the Acromantulas. Besides that, anyone could see that he craved power, and to have the strongest clan, it meant that he'd be able to conquer the others and have more members (plus more females for him to _procreate _with; I am an example of such things).

But I wonder what he had to say or do in order to convince everyone to follow him to a new location, since most of them had been living where we were now for most of their lives – a long time before Thereus killed Melanchaetes and asserted his new dominance. The women that had children (whether they were his or another male's from the herd didn't particularly matter) knew that they had much better chances going off with him than being alone. It would be brilliant enough if they managed to survive on their own, but they had no chances of joining another clan with a living child from someone else's.

There was possible death either way for them.

However, the men were able to decide themselves if they wanted to follow or not, considering they had only themselves to look after and to get into another tribe it only meant that they had to win a fight – which was the same option for a female without any burdens of children. So what reason did they have to travel?

* * *

"Hurry up, Ispoples. Do you know how dangerous it is to be at the very back? All the _protection_ is in the middle – where most of the herd is, surrounded by the soldiers."

My mother impatiently stamped her hoof, and flicked her tail as she waited for me to catch up. It wasn't exactly true that we were at the very back of everyone – there _were_ others behind us, but they were the ones who were very sick and weren't exactly expected to make it all the way to our new home. I didn't know whether they were dying of the same thing the others had, if it even was a disease or illness, and the only ones who would know were at the very front, trying to get as far away from the madness that we left behind as possible.

The whole herd, around fifty of us, had been travelling for a week and whilst there wasn't a huge amount demand for protection for the first few days, we had recently ventured into a territory that held rumours of a dragon. Some of us didn't believe that there was a dragon living in these forests for it would be unlikely that no one had ever seen it – and there wasn't many places for it to live – but apparently it didn't stay in one place for long. During the trek, there was barely any time for rest since we needed to get out of the possible dragon territory as quick as possible – and even if there was, Thereus hardly allowed more than an hour – and many were starting to tire.

"Honestly Ispoples, is that too much to ask?" She asked rhetorically when I was once again by her side. "That you keep up? You tire too quickly – hardly a sign for a _good _warrior."

My mother, Nephele, used to be the leader of her own herd many years ago. A herd that was for females only, and would freely welcome them whether they were by themselves or with a child – and if that child was male, it would be the only exception to the rule. All the women in that herd were warriors, with Nephele being the alpha female because she was the best. Then, one day, some Wizards who were out on a hunt killed a few members of the herd, leaving them weaker than they used to be because of the depleted numbers. Only hours later, just as they were beginning to collect themselves from the disaster and sort through their dead, Thereus' clan showed up and fought them; with them unprepared, it wasn't long before they lost under his larger numbers and those that were left were taken into his clan and stripped of their warrior titles.

"Maybe I don't _want _to be a warrior," I mumbled in reply. But, really, there was hardly anything for males to do in a clan other than be warriors – if we weren't going to fight, we were just luggage to everyone else.

She only rolled her eyes and continued to walk on. I started to slow down again and was a few paces behind her in only seconds; I trotted up to her once again and tried to keep a brisk pace. "_Why _are we leaving anyway? No one was told anything. One day we were woken up by Thereus and were told that we were leaving in a few hours time – everyone got up, asked no questions, and followed."

A flick of her tail, that's all the indication that I had to know that she didn't want to discuss this. "You know we don't question _the leader_," she said somewhat mockingly. "He does what he wants and if you don't follow then you're as good as dead by yourself. I've told you this before, and I don't know why you're asking again. You questioning him is only going to cause trouble for all of us." She turned to me and fixed me with a furious stare. This _wasn't _the first time that I had gotten someone in trouble with Thereus and almost everyone remembers what he was like the last time, though it wasn't my fault then. When it's a child questioning him, he's cruel; when it's an adult, he's ruthless and unsympathetic in his treatments. Everyone quickly learned that it was best just to follow. However, following blindly wasn't always the best thing to do. There were centaurs dying and no one seemed to know anything about it.

"There must be _something. _The stars-"

"_Stop. _Right now. If someone hears you, Ispoples, then I don't even want to _think _about what he's going to do this time. You're testing his patience – _and mine,"_ she warned, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me deeper into the masses in the hopes of getting into the protected middle. Or so that I became quiet.

"People are _dying, _mother. I saw them! The dead – piled up away from our territory," I whispered, looking around at the others surrounding us, making sure that they couldn't hear. Mother was right, of course; it wouldn't be good if Thereus ever heard of this conversation.

She moved her hand from my arm and grabbed onto my hair, keeping me in place as she spoke in a low voice, meaning every threat she said. "Listen hear, _son. _You want to know what the stars say? Fine. They say that there's something coming for us back there. Something that no one has ever seen before-"

"Maybe it's the dragon-"

Her fingers tightened their grip on my hair as she quickly interrupted me before we fell too far behind in the crowd. "It's _not _the dragon. Whatever it is, it's said to destroy us all. We're moving in the hopes of getting away from it, I assume." Her hand moved back from my hair to my shoulder and continued to hold me in place. "Consider this information a gift, but _don't _share it with anyone and don't even talk about it to me – I'm not allowed read the stars anymore, remember? And, Gods above, don't try to challenge Thereus again." Her eyes quickly scanned the area around us again, and snorted irritably as she noticed that we were once again with the sick and dying. She turned around so that she faced forward once more instead of facing me, and pushed me forward too as we continued to walk. Once we had made it into the good position that we used to be in a few minutes later, her hand slipped from me and said shortly, "In repayment for the information, you will keep up yourself. I won't keep stopping to collect you, so like the leader you aim to be, you can start by being in charge of yourself. You fall behind; you fall behind and risk being lost forever. Understand?"

She barely looked at me for a second longer to see my head nod in reply, before she continued in her same brisk pace that she was now able to keep up without worrying about losing me. I wasn't particularly hurt or angry at her decision; she knew that I didn't want to stay with this clan despite it possibly being the most powerful; and there was no way that she was going to leave. Though the young had even less of a chance of surviving in the forests themselves, I wanted to go and this was a free ticket out. Still, I'd rather stay here until I was older and would stand a better chance at leaving – or even challenging Thereus' leadership, or whoever was the new leader by then – and I was determined to prove that I could keep up, just like all the others, myself.

It would also benefit me to stick around just a bit longer until I knew that this threat – whatever it was – was gone before I ventured out, and accidentally returned to our original home where it is predicted to lie. And, also not wanting to be in the dragon territory any longer. I wouldn't make it far if I stumbled upon the beast.

* * *

It happened all so quickly. One minute the river was in everyone's view, and the next there was a shadow overheard, igniting the land around us.

Thereus quickly shouted orders for all the soldiers to draw their weapons, and fire into the sky where the beast loomed over us, creating a circle of flames in which to trap us in. It was clever, that was decided fast by watching the ways it manoeuvred and trapped and separated everyone repeatedly. It kept the strongest in the circle of flames, keeping them from helping the weakest ones, such as those without weapons, the children, and the sick. So close to the river however, some had the initiative to take the buckets that had taken with them and fill it with water to extinguish the rings, but the dragon quickly rebuilt them – and even trapped those with pails inside the same circle. Those that didn't have any weapons had quickly fled, knowing that they didn't stand much of a chance with the warriors being picked off first, and took anything that they could to help them with them. Mothers who hadn't been trapped in any of the rings of fire, quickly grabbed their children and ran, however, those that were in the rings called for their children to run and I was soon the only child left.

I looked around for my mother, and surprisingly found that she had managed to retrieve some weapons off a fallen soldier and joined in the fight, though she was soon just as trapped as the rest of them. Of course, that didn't mean that any of them that had been caught in the rings had given up, because if anything they fought harder.

Since she had given me my own choices about what I should do – keep up or be lost and not need to be pulled around by her – and since she was so caught up in the fight, I didn't know what I should do even though the answer was obvious. I was not a fighter - that much was clear. I was too young and too inexperienced to join in – but, trying to survive on my own? I'd be lost for who knows how long. Realistically, the chances of being discovered by another clan some time soon was a small possibility; they would've seen or heard the destruction caused by the dragon and would quickly turn the other way. All the adults had already gone in different directions and even the last one to leave would be too far out of my line of sight by now to follow.

Still, I couldn't just stand here and do nothing.

I took one look at those slowly burning, turned on my heel and ran.

* * *

I hadn't come across another creature in a long time.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed since most of the herd was killed by the dragon. Maybe it was a few weeks. Maybe it had been a few months. Maybe it had been a year. All I know is that I was, miraculously, still alive.

The forest seemed bigger than ever now, even though it was where I had always lived, and filled with an eerie silence that I hadn't seemed to notice until now. I ate the berries that I remember as being safe and once tried to build my own bow and arrows before it was discovered that they weren't as easy to make as I had thought. From that day on, my diet had become completely vegetarian.

I was also growing; of that, I was sure. It was an obvious thing to recognise when you could suddenly reach growing fruit on the branches of trees that you never would have been able to before. And since I was growing, it meant that I was getting stronger and with the constant walking – only taking short breaks, as Thereus used to do – my stamina was increasing. I was walking further and further every day, but still, as I had mentioned before, there was no sign of creatures. No tracks and no noises to alert me to their presence. To stop me from being any more lost than I was, I made marks on trees that I passed, though that also functioned as a path to a potential source of food for the carnivores in the forest.

It was possible that I was being hunted, but it was also likely that paranoia had begun to set in.

I didn't know where I was going (other than as far _away _from the river as I could get) and I didn't know how to read the stars. Only leaders and close advisers could do that – were _allowed _and taught to do that. If the threat against our herd was still there, or if another prophecy had arisen, then I wouldn't know.

* * *

_I'm going to die, _was the first thought I had as the burning pain in my chest increased and I collapsed to the ground. I didn't know what was wrong; I didn't know how to treat it. It certainly wasn't exhaustion, I knew that much, but this was different to anything I had heard of before.

As I struggled for breath, I made sure to take one last glance at my surroundings. This would be the place where I died, and this would be the place where my spirit will roam forevermore. There were trees everywhere, and flowers dotted about, brightening the place. I lay in a patch of grass that looked like it had been an old centaur's nest but had been long since abandoned.

Just as I slipped into unconsciousness, I belatedly realised that I had managed to make it back to my home.

* * *

I hear voices around me, and it takes me a moment to process the thought that if I can hear voices and feel the aches in my bones, then I'm not dead. I'm sure that there was a hitch in my breathing with that thought, and someone – a woman, it sounded like – alerted others to my waking up. I didn't know how many people came and started asking me questions, but it was a few and all were female. I cracked open an eye and took in the sight around me.

I breathed out a sigh of relief, even though it pained me to do so. It felt like it had been so long not being in a clan that I had forgotten that most women were healers and it was normal for strays, or those dying, to be picked up if stumbled upon, depending on how generous the leader is. Thereus never did.

I answered their questions as helpfully as I could and was then left to rest. I had been lost and found.

* * *

**A/N - Please follow, favourite and review!**


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